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What is a bounty?

A bounty is a special reputation award given to answers. This feature was designed to motivate answerers, and help questions get the answers they deserve.

Bounty awards are funded by the personal reputation of the users who offer them. The award can be anywhere from 50 to 500 reputation, in 50 point increments. Note: If you are offering a bounty on a question that you have already posted an answer to, your minimum spend is 100 reputation (not 50).

While you do not need to be the owner of a question to start a bounty on that question, only one bounty can be active on a question at once, and each user can only have up to three active bounties at once.

What is the "Featured" tab on the homepage?

How can I search for questions that have a bounty attached?

Questions with an active bounty appear with a special icon in all question lists, and are also visible on the home page's Featured tab. Questions in that tab are sorted by the amount of time left on their bounties. The closer a bounty is to expiring, the higher it will be on the list.

How do I start a bounty? When can I start a bounty?

A bounty can be started on a question two days after the question was asked.

To start a bounty, click on the start a bounty link at the bottom of an eligible question. The bounty panel will open. Use the dropdown to allocate the bounty amount -- anywhere between 50 and 500 reputation, in 50 point increments.

You must have at least 75 reputation to start a bounty, and at least as much reputation as the bounty amount.

The bounty award will be subtracted from your reputation when the bounty is started, not when it is awarded.

Can I use Markdown formatting in the bounty remarks? Can I edit the remark?

Note that even if you don't have an answer, or only a self-answer, the grace period is still in effect for 24 hours. Answers posted during this time period may be awarded the bounty.

How do I award a bounty?

A bounty can be awarded 24 hours after the bounty was started. Any answer to the question, even an existing answer that has already been awarded one or more bounties, is eligible to be manually awarded the bounty.

To award the bounty manually, click on the +50 (or whatever bounty amount was allocated) button on the left side of the answer you want to award:

Can I award a bounty to my own answer?

No. This used to be possible, but it has been disabled. The user would not get the reputation back, and the bounty will be displayed as +0, “this answer has been awarded bounty worth 0 reputation”.

Can I award a bounty to an old answer?

Yes, you can award your bounty to any answer on the question. This makes it possible for users to reward particularly good answers with more rep than a standard upvote would provide.

To indicate that your bounty will be awarded to an existing answer, choose "Reward existing answer" when asked "Why are you starting this bounty?"

Keep in mind, that the bounty can be awarded only after a minimum of 24 hours, after starting the bounty.

If I offer a bounty on someone else's question, can I award the bounty to their answer?

Yes, a bounty can be awarded to any answer except one posted by the person offering the bounty.

This means that if you offer a bounty on someone else's question, and the original poster of that question posts an answer, you can award the bounty to their answer.

After awarding the bounty, can I remove it or move it to another answer at a later time?

No, awarding is permanent. (But you're warned about that when actually awarding the bounty.)

What happens if there's no answer after the bounty period?

If after the end of the bounty period a question has no answers, no bounty will be awarded and the question will no longer be featured.

Bounties are best understood as exchanging reputation for higher question visibility and increased answerer motivation. A bounty does not guarantee a response and is not refunded if none are received.

What happens if I feel my question is still unanswered?

What is automatic awarding?

Approximately 24 hours after the end of the bounty period, if the bounty starter has not manually awarded the bounty, the bounty may be awarded automatically.

If the bounty starter accepted an answer during the bounty period, that answer is awarded the bounty (provided that the answer was posted during the bounty period). Answers accepted before the bounty period are not eligible to be awarded the bounty automatically.

Otherwise, if there are eligible answers, the highest scoring is awarded half the bounty amount. The criteria for an answer to be eligible are:

The answer must have been given after the bounty was started

The answer must have a score of at least +2

The answer must not have been written by the bounty starter

If two or more eligible answers have the same score (if their scores are tied), the oldest answer is awarded the bounty.

If neither of these conditions apply, the bounty is not awarded to any answer, and is not refunded to the bounty starter.

Are bounty awards exempt from the 200 points/day reputation limit?

Yes, bounty awards are exempt from the daily reputation cap.

How does Community Wiki mode affect bounties?

Bounties are not affected by community wiki mode. When you award a bounty to an answer marked community wiki, the reputation bonus will be awarded to the user who posted the original revision of the answer.

Can I offer a second bounty after the first one has expired?

Can I raise my bounty?

You can offer as many bounties on a question as you want. However, only one bounty can be active on a question at a time. Moreover, any user may have at most 3 concurrent bounties at a time.

Note that if you offer several bounties on the same question, you will have to double the amount each time (or more). That is, if your first bounty was worth 50 reputation, your second bounty on the same question will have to be for at least 100, your third for at least 200 and so on. If you've already offered a bounty for more than 250, you can still offer more bounties for 500 (the maximum amount) as long as you like (or as long as you have the rep). This doubling applies only to bounties by the same user on the same question.

What happens if a bounty question is closed, or deleted?

Why can't I vote to close or migrate a bounty question?

Bounty questions cannot be closed directly.

However, diamond moderators can refund bounties, which would then allow it to be closed, migrated, or deleted like any other question. (source)

Do I keep an awarded bounty when I delete my answer?

When an answer that received a bounty is deleted, all reputation including the bounty are revoked. (This may take 5 minutes to be visible.) The bounty is not given back to the user who awarded it.

If a question is deleted, on which I placed or awarded a bounty, do I get the reputation back?

Yes. The change is not immediate like other reputation changes but the reputation is given back (Source – marked status-bydesign is official enough).
If the question is undeleted, the reputation is reduced again.

Can I cancel my bounty?

No. Once you start a bounty, you cannot cancel it.

If you feel there are exceptional circumstances, flag the question for moderator attention to explain the situation.

Can I affect / divide part of my bounty to two (or more) users?

No. If multiple answers to a single question have earned bounties, it's because the question has been subject to multiple bounties.

How does this affect already earned priveleges and the potential to gain new priveleges? For example at 75 you can set a bounty. If you do so and spend 50 rep points you now have 25. Can you no longer set bounties? Would you also now need 75 reputation before "Editing Community Wiki" at 100 reputation or would you still only be 25 reputation away?
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RyanMar 7 '12 at 17:59

Why is it that the lowest bounty I can start is 100 rep?
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EphraimMay 9 '12 at 2:49

Could I start bounty for question with negative votes?
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Eugen MartynovJul 12 '12 at 8:27

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I don't think that "why can't I close a question with a bounty" is adequately answered. I've seen a few instances lately why a user simply puts on a 50 point bounty to make sure the question is not closed. If there are 5 people or more that think the question is off topic, then close the question and either do a refund or let the user loose his bounty points. Alternatively only allow close votes happen on questions with bounties that already have 1 or more close votes.
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Maarten BodewesAug 18 '12 at 12:00

@owlstead: Do you have examples of such cases? It doesn't sound like an important use case to me- the question would have to have been asked two days earlier and lasted those two days without being closed. And is a user willing to pay 50 rep a week just for the sake of keeping a bad question open?
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David RobinsonSep 21 '12 at 16:52

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@DavidRobinson: Yes, I've seen it happen, but I would be hard pressed to come up with the example by now. The problem is that some questions are not tagged with tag labels that are frequently used. In that case the question certainly won't be closed within two days. Even then, it is relatively easy to simply edit in tags later on (although I don't know what that would do with the bounty system out of the top of my head).
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Maarten BodewesSep 21 '12 at 17:02

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If no acceptable answers are received, why is the bounty not refunded to the bounty starter? That seems opposite of how real life bounties work.
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asp316Nov 15 '12 at 0:38

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@asp I think the points are not refunded so that the person who started the bounty does not have an incentive not to award a bounty to the best answer. (i.e. a great answer has been given, but I'm not going to award the bounty so that I get my 100 points back).
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Noah DyerDec 26 '12 at 23:47

There is a badge called 'investor' at stackoverflow which states - "First bounty you offered on another person's question". When this badge says investor does that mean I who invested in another person's question has some gain in terms of reputation points?
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Javier BrooklynFeb 9 '13 at 5:29

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What about the grace period? Which answers are eligible for it? (IIRC ones arriving during the grace period can’t receive the bounty, but I sometimes don’t recall correctly.)
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minitechMar 6 '13 at 15:35

@JavierBrooklyn There's no reputation gain for the bounty awarder. Badge names really don't mean much, they're just what someone decided would be a good enough name. But you can think of it as investing reputation to gain knowledge from better answers or to improve the site by letting good answerers rise to the top and providing more motivation for good answers to gain a better experience in future.
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DukelingMay 10 '13 at 11:08

Question: "Note that if you offer several bounties on the same question, you will have to double the amount each time (or more)." Does this mean that I add an amount equal to what is already there? I.e. I put a 50 point bounty, no award, at end of period can I put another 50 to get to 100 or does the 50 go away and then I have to put a full 100? If this is not the case would that be a bad idea (to add additional rep instead of replacement)?
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chacham15Nov 1 '13 at 7:34

I would like to award a bounty to an answer to this question but I can't find the Reward Existing Answer button.
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Ross MillikanDec 14 '13 at 5:45

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@KJC2009 no, if the bounty period is over (7 days plus 24 hours grace period) and its creator did not award it manually it might be awarded automatically, read the answer above for details (under "What is automatic awarding?". As a side note, I understand you're frustrated for getting downvotes on Meta but please do not vandalize other posts. Thanks.
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Shadow WizardApr 7 '14 at 22:13